Bellwright is building a settlement, a revolution, and my anticipation

thesixthaxis.com:

I remember when everything here was fields and trees. That’s your starting point for Bellwright, a hugely promising new title from Donkey Crew that’s striking an impressive balance between casual, calm, crafting and building of your own homestead, town, or eventually keep, and the narrative pull of rebellion, political machinations and brutal combat. It’s looking fantastic so far.

We were lucky enough to take a look at the current build of the game at this year’s Gamescom, ably led through it by Creative Director Florian Hofreither and Game Designer Tymoteuz ‘Juicy’ Tarnawski from the development team. They were keen to stress that it was a work in progress, but the slice of gameplay that we were able to indulge in was full of depth and detail, and, most importantly was running at a slick 60 FPS. Florian laughs at this, saying, “It wasn’t like this two weeks ago!” That speaks to a development team that are ploughing their time into getting everything right ahead of its release into early access later this year. You should make a note now.

If you’re a fan of Rimworld, Valheim or Mount and Blade there are aspects of Bellwright that may feel familiar, but they’ve never come together in this way. While there’s building, crafting and combat, there’s also a strong narrative thread to pull on that sees your character returning from a period of exile to find the country in disarray. You set about stoking the fires of rebellion and revolution, all the while gaining ground with the people of this nation by helping them to adapt and grow, building fortifications to protect them, infrastructure to feed them, and leading them from the front when enemy forces appear on the horizon.

Florian makes it clear that much of this is